


Broken Masks

by GalahadWilder



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Child Abuse, F/M, Gabriel Agreste’s A+ Parenting, Identity Reveal, Identity Reveal to Everyone, Lila downfall, Lila exposed, Post Reveal, adrien runs away
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 22:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21686494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalahadWilder/pseuds/GalahadWilder
Summary: Chat Noir and Ladybug's identities have been revealed to the entirety of Paris, and Marinette and Adrien are left reeling. Some people try to take advantage; some rally to their side. But with their primary defense against Hawkmoth destroyed, how are they meant to continue the fight?
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 73
Kudos: 850





	1. The Mortifying Ordeal

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Sewing Needles and Cat Paws](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16797478) by [SailorChibi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorChibi/pseuds/SailorChibi). 



> Prompt:
> 
> It was like she was losing all control. But then again, when was the last time she had control of anything?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "If we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known."  
> \--Tim Kreider

Marinette looked out her window to the crowd of reporters gathered below and couldn’t hold back a whimper. So many people, all looking for her, to worship her or berate her or—it didn’t matter. They were all here for her. And she couldn’t escape them. Not anymore.

She felt gentle fingers wrap around her limp wrist. “Shhh, shh, shh,” her mother said, pulling her limp daughter into her lap on the chaise. Maman held her tightly, stroking her hair, tugging Marinette’s gravity blanket around their shoulders. “Don’t look, pumpkin,” she said as the old chaise squeaked under their combined weight. “Nobody here but us.”

“You’re going to be okay, Marinette,” Tikki said, nestled in her hair, earning another sidelong look from Maman, but the Kwami’s words were lost as Marinette’s breathing began to come in gasps.

Marinette felt like a baby, desperate for her mother’s arms, as the whole world tried to break down her front door. She wasn’t ready for this—it was like she was losing all control. But then again, when was the last time she had control of anything?

 _Normal girl with a normal life?_ She couldn’t believe she’d ever bought that lie.

Taking off the mask had always been easy. Two words and Ladybug would vanish, she’d drop off the face of the Earth and be replaced by average unremarkable Marinette, able to slip beneath notice, to take a break from all the overwhelming attention and the adoration. But that had just been the _illusion_ of control—even with the mask off, she’d always been Ladybug, and all it would take was one slip-up and she’d never be able to take it off again.

With the mask separating her from the rest of the world, keeping her privacy, she hadn’t noticed when she’d become famous enough _as Marinette_ that people had begun to watch her. Everyone looked at Ladybug. Being able to take off that face and become Marinette—she’d taken that for granted. She’d settled into her illusion of safety, and now it was gone. She’d never be “just Marinette” again.

But in the absence of her normal barrier, there were other ones—ones she could never have erected by herself. Her father’s whole family had come together for the first time since before the wedding, just to protect her: Mama Gina and Papa Roland had even managed to ignore their usual hatred of each other to agree that they could work together to make sure that nobody made it up the stairs. Her classmates had gathered into a makeshift wall between the reporters and the bakery doors; even if anyone did get into the shop, there was no way they could make it into her apartment with both Ivan and her father were sitting on the trapdoor, holding it down with their combined weight. (Ivan had insisted on protecting her personally. “I owe you for Stoneheart,” he’d told her.)

“We’re so proud of you, Pumpkin,” her father said with a sad smile, straining to reach out to her while trying to keep his full weight on the trapdoor in case someone had slipped past his parents downstairs. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

Her nerves began to squeeze in her wrists, shooting fire down to her fingers and up through her chest as she began to shake. Easy for _him_ to say that everything was going to be all right; he wasn’t responsible for the safety of an entire city, he hadn’t just lost the only protection he’d had against a magical terrorist, he wasn’t… but she could see in his face, in the tightness hiding behind his mustache, how terrified he was, how he was trying to keep it together for _her_.

The babble of the crowd downstairs began to rise, pressing down onto her brain, and she curled closer to her mother with a whimper. Tikki cooed, scratching Marinette’s scalp with her paws.

Suddenly there was a shout, and all the sound outside stopped.

Marinette jerked upward, her eyes locked on the window. She couldn’t get an angle, couldn’t see the street—

Her mother swallowed. “Sweetie,” she said, “don’t look.”

Marinette didn’t listen.

She yanked herself out of her mother’s arms and shot up from the chaise, peering through her window to see the crowd parted around the familiar bald head of Alec Cataldi. His face was turned, a palm pressed to his cheek, and his expression—from what Marinette could see—was one of shock and pain.

It was easy to see why. Alya stood before him, towering over him despite their relative heights, her fist hooked just past Cataldi’s face, right where his cheek would have been. Marinette couldn’t see her best friend’s face but she knew that stance. _If you touch my friend I will **annihilate** you._

Alec’s glare snapped toward Alya, the smile leaving his smug face for the first time in Marinette’s memory. He pointed at Alya, spat something angry and stupid. Looked around at the other reporters for… solidarity maybe?

Instead, Chloé stepped forward, right next to Alya, phone in hand, planting herself next to the other girl. The crowd parted before her—they all backed away, eyes down in shame, steadfastly avoiding looking at Alya.

Marinette’s gaze shot upward, peering into the blue sky, searching for violet specks across the azure. “Ivan,” she whispered, hugging her shoulders. “Can you… send Alya a thank-you text?”

Ivan perked up. “Why?” he said. “What’d she do?”

Marinette bit her lip as she turned back to the chaise. “She just punched Alec Cataldi.” She shouldn’t be laughing, she thought, climbing back into her mother’s lap. She was a superhero… but Cataldi’s particular lack of ethics and tact had put her through hell since the day he rigged the weathergirl contest. She couldn’t help feeling some satisfaction at knowing someone had finally made him feel consequences.

“ _Cataldi_ ,” Papa snarled, pressing his palms to the trapdoor until his fingers went white. “I swear, that man has _no_ sense of appropriateness. He’s caused more Akuma than—”

Ivan placed a hand on Papa’s forearm with a raised eyebrow, and Papa froze.

“We need to stay calm,” Ivan said, softly. “She’s in no condition to be fighting family right now.”

Papa swallowed. “Yes… right,” he said. “I… thank you.” He seemed to visibly deflate at the thought of _not_ berserking on the abusive game show host.

“You know,” Mama cooed, “I bet if Ladybug complained you could get that man fired.”

Tikki hissed. “Marinette, no!”

Marinette rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t gonna,” she said.

She _was_ tempted, though. The man should’ve known to stop humiliating people on air after the first time one of them got Akumatized, but he never really learned, did he?

“ _Stray cat strut, I’m a ladies cat,”_ her phone suddenly shouted from her desk.

Marinette’s stomach clenched, and she dove for it, her fingers scrabbling for her pink case as it continued: “ _I’m a feline Casanova, hey man that’s that._ ”

“It’s him.”

Papa’s head immediately swiveled. “Is he okay? Is he safe?”

“ _Get a shoe thrown at me from a mean old man, Get my dinner from a garbage can!_ ”

Marinette stared at her phone, at the obnoxious face of Nyan Cat she’d put into “Chris Nicolas’s” phone contact to hide his identity, back when that still mattered. She hadn’t thought to change his contact picture yet. Should she—no, not the time. “He’s calling from the baton,” she muttered. That wasn’t a good sign. He was supposed to be talking to his father right now.

She should change his ringtone, too. “ _Shoe thrown at me by a mean old man_ ”—couldn’t be more foreboding for this particular call if she’d tried. She shivered.

She answered the call. “Kitty?” she breathed. “Are you okay? Where are you?”

He laughed, but not Chat’s prankster laugh, or Adrien’s genuine sunshine one—this one was rueful, sad, broken. “ _Hiding on the Trocadero,_ ” he said, his voice strangely muffled, like he’d stuffed cotton into his cheeks. “ _I—My Lady, I don’t think I can go back._ ”

Marinette swallowed as a shiver passed up her upper arms. She tried to force down tears—he didn’t need her to break down right now, he needed _solutions_.

“What happened?” she choked out.

“ _He tried to—”_ Chat’s voice broke. _“T_ _o… take the ring. When I wouldn’t give it to him…_ ” He sobbed. “ _He... he was so angry..._ ”

Her heart rocketed into her throat, and the chaise squeaked under her legs as she shifted. _No_. “Chaton,” she said, “what did he do?”

“ _He threatened me. Said he’d throw me out.”_

“You—” It couldn’t be. Even _Gabriel_ wouldn’t—wouldn’t be so cruel. Could it? “ _Throw you out?”_

Her father read the expression on her face and nodded. “We protect him,” he said to his wife with a determined set to his jaw. “With the number of times he’s saved her—”

“He stays here,” Maman agreed, softly but firmly.

Marinette squeezed her eyes and shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “This is the first place his father… or, or _Hawkmoth_ , will look.”

“ _My Lady,”_ Chat said. “ _He—he hit me._ ”

“ _No_.” Marinette’s fingers were shaking—only holding her phone to her face kept them from outright quaking. His _voice_ —no wonder it sounded so strange... “Adri—Kitty, Chaton, Mon Minou, I’m so sorry, I’m—I’m—”

He gasped. “ _Butterfly_ ,” he said.

The phone dropped from slack fingers. “Tikki!” she screamed. “Spots on!”

She didn’t have time to see her parents’ reactions before she’d launched herself from the chaise and out the skylight. She couldn’t even imagine what they must be feeling, must be thinking; seeing it on the news was one thing, but watching your daughter transform in the middle of her room from clumsy, anxious Marinette to the unstoppable Hero of Paris?

She heard screaming from the crowd down below as cameras caught her vaulting across the street. She was sure every newspaper and tabloid in Paris—except the Ladyblog—was going to have an original image from this moment by the end of the day, but she didn’t have time to care about that. Didn’t have time to think about anything else, just her partner, somewhere she couldn’t see, desperately scrabbling backwards away from the oncoming butterfly. Her pulse pounded in her ears as she raced toward him—

She found him on a roof, staring blankly at his clenched fist.

“I killed it,” he said, his voice cracking. One green pad was missing from his ring.

Her heart leaped at the sight, and she barely touched down on the roof before she collapsed into his arms, shivering.

After a moment of surprise, he pulled her in close. “I’m okay,” he whispered, stroking her hair. “I’m okay.”

Ladybug whimpered, shook her head. “Both our identities got blown to the _entirety of Paris_ ,” she said. “You—your father _hurt you_.”

“My Lady, I’m fine—”

“Adrien,” she interrupted, “you are _allowed_ to _not be okay_.”

He stared for a moment, eyes wide and watering, before he collapsed into her, sobbing into her hair.


	2. Give Me Space

Marinette hugged her arms around her stomach as the _Liberty_ began to churn away from the river shore, and for the first time since she'd seen her own name appear onscreen beneath Cataldi's smug face, she finally began to relax. Out here, there was no one looking for her—no one chasing down Ladybug, nobody trying to corner her to pester her with questions or accusations or thanks. And out here, Hawkmoth didn't know where she was, didn't know where _Adrien_ was. They were safe. Or at least, as safe as they could be. For now.

"How are you two doing?" her mother said, her voice tinny through the earbuds.

Marinette huddled deeper into the hoodie she'd borrowed from Luka, watching the waves of the Seine drift by. "He's... not doing well," she said, leaning out over the rail. "It's not safe to for him to go home, and I don't think he knows what to do with himself." She'd pulled the hood as far over her head as it would go, hiding her face—and her distinctive pigtails—from anyone who might be combing the streets looking for Ladybug.

Her mother sighed. "I do feel terrible for that boy," she said. "He deserves a family that cares about him."

"Yeah," Marinette agreed, watching specks of people drift by on the distant shore.

"But Pumpkin," Sabine continued, "I was asking about _you_."

Marinette's teeth snapped shut, trapping specks of water on her tongue. "I'm... fine," she ground out.

" _Oh, no_ ," she heard her father's voice from a bit of a distance. " _I know this mood. Put her on speaker?_ "

Marinette ground her teeth. "Papa," she growled, "I'm _fine._ "

Her father sighed. "Do you remember that time when you were seven?" he said. "When you tried to fistfight Chloé for insulting the bakery—and then punched her father, the _mayor_ , for defending her?"

Marinette shrank into herself slightly, feeling the cold of the railing on her arms. "I... yeah," she said. "Yeah I do."

"And do you remember how you tried to hide it from us until Mme. Blanchet called us a week later?"

Marinette sighed, her eyes dropping toward the black-green waves passing beneath the boat. "Yes, Papa," she murmured. "I remember."

"Sweetie," her father said, "you have always gone out of your way to defend us. You're fierce and stubborn, and that's part of what makes the hero we always knew you could be."

Marinette's heart warmed, and tears gathered in her eyes. "Papa, I'm _Ladybug,_ " she said. "If I'm not fine, Paris..." She trailed off, her voice growing wet. "Paris is..."

"Pumpkin," her mother interrupted. "We _know_ you've been shouldering this on your own for years. We know you've been protecting us. _Please,_ just—" Her voice broke. "Just let us protect you."

Marinette's eyes widened. "Maman?" she whispered. She couldn't remember the last time she'd heard her mother cry.

"We're you _parents,_ Marinette," her mother said. "We know things are..." She coughed out a single rueful and mirthless chuckle. "Things are scary right now, and I know you're more worried about _us_ than about yourself."

"You always did look after everyone else before yourself," her father added. "You were Ladybug long before you ever put on those earrings."

Marinette choked, wiping her eyes. "Papa, I'm just..." She looked down at her pockets, where Tikki was napping after their reckless flight from Agreste Manor. "It's so much," she whispered.

"It's okay to not be okay, sweetie," her father said. "I know you've gotten so used to being Ladybug... but it's all right to be our little girl when you need it."

Marinette choked, turning and slamming her back against the rail and sliding down onto the wet deck. " _Papa_ ," she sobbed. "Papa, why—why can't—" Tears began to stream down her face. "Why can't they just leave us alone?"

* * *

She was still there, her back slumped against the rail, staring at nothing when Luka found her.

"Aria?" he said, crouching down in front of her. "Everything all right?"

Marinette looked up at him through puffy eyes, taking in the familiar face of the first boy she'd ever told she was in love with him. "I... think so?" she said, searching his eyes for... she wasn't even sure what. Reassurance, maybe?

"Come on," he said, holding out a hand. His eyes were soft in that infuriatingly calm and understanding way of his, and not for the first time Marinette found herself wishing things with him hadn't ended the way they did. "Alya called. Mom's finding a place to dock now."

She took his hand and tensed her core, grateful for the surety of his grasp. "She bring everything?"

Luka nodded with a wry smile, lifting her to her feet. "The whole chest," he said. He raised a mischievous eyebrow. "You sure you're ready for him to see it?"

Marinette's stomach clenched, and she bit her lip, looking past Luka into the greenhouse—down the stairs, there was her partner, her Kitty, her _Adrien_ , and she wasn't sure which part of him scared her most. "I—no, I don't... I'm not..." She closed her eyes, breathed in, breathed out. "Doesn't matter," she said, clenching a fist. "He needs it."

Luka chuckled. "That's so very you, Aria," he said. "Putting yourself aside for others." He reached up, brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. "Can't believe I never saw it."

Marinette snorted wetly, wiping her eye with her oversized hoodie sleeve. "To be fair," she murmured, "neither did _he_."

Luka smiled softly. "That does make me feel better," he said. He glanced back at the greenhouse, his eyes growing sad. "He hasn't said it, but he's been looking for you," he said. "He looks at the door every six seconds, and every time you don't come through, he sort of... _falls_ a little bit."

Marinette's stomach squeezed, and she bit her lip. She could _see_ the expression on his face—the lonely of Adrien and Chat combined made _so much more sense_ than she'd ever imagined. No _wonder_ Chat clung to her so intensely. "I should go get him," she murmurs. Then, suddenly remembering who she was speaking to, she looked back at Luka. "You're... okay? With me?"

Luka chuckled. "I know you, Aria," he said, squeezing her hand. "I know you're trying to be strong, to not let him see you break down. But you need him as much as he needs you."

Marinette looked up at him, confused. "That's... not what I asked?"

He smiled, taking her head between his palms and pressing a kiss to her forehead. "Go back belowdecks," he said. "Be with your partner."

He didn't have to tell her twice.

* * *

Marinette bolted down the stairs from the greenhouse into the _Liberty_ ’s main living room/practice space, taking them a little too fast—she had to jump the last three. Didn’t matter, Chat needed her. She glanced around frantically, Ladybug-cataloguing the scattered instruments, Tikki munching on a cookie in the kitchenette, unmade beds, very giggly Rose sitting in Juleka’s lap, and the door to the back of the houseboat, but no Adrien. _No Adrien._

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and steadied herself... and when she opened them again, it was Ladybug looking through them. "Has anybody seen my cat?"

Rose and Juleka both stopped their cuddling and turned to stare at her with confused—and delighted—eyes. She glanced behind herself at the kitchenette, saw Tikki chortling as she stuffed an entire snickerdoodle into her tiny mouth.

”Under here, My Lady,” a quiet, wavery voice said.

Her eyes flicked around—his voice had come from somewhere near the beds, but she couldn’t see him. Where was...?

She glanced at Rose and Juleka. “He’s under the bed, isn’t he.”

Rose giggled. Juleka nodded with a snort.

Marinette sighed—both in exasperation and relief, now that she knew where he was, that he was safe, but also that he was doing silly cat things again. She stomped across the practice deck floor, dropping to her knees next to Luka’s bed and bending down to peer under it.

"Hi, Kitty," she said, her voice soft. "I thought you were claustrophobic?"

Adrien looked up at her with wide eyes. He was curled up underneath the bed in a fetal position, hugging his knees to his chest—and now that he’d stopped, she realized she’d heard him purring from the moment she’d stepped off the stairs.

”Usuallly, yeah,” he croaked. “But... the cat comes out when I’m...” He trailed off. “You don’t need to—to...”

She slid down onto her stomach and reached out to brush her hands through his hair. "Mind if I make it smaller?" she said. "Scoot over, I'm joining you in there."

"You’re not... mad at me?"

"No, _Chaton,_ " she whispered, scratching her nails gently through his scalp. "Never."

**Author's Note:**

> [Find me on Tumblr.](http://www.galahadwilder.tumblr.com)


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